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Published in "Puck" December 7, 1887. At the re-assembling of Congress in December, 1887, one of the first questions it had to confront was the question of the Surplus. The revenues of the government, especially those coming from customs duties, were so vast that an enormous, useless, cumbersome and dangerous surplus was steadily piling itself up in the United States Treasury. Interestingly, by 1893 the surplus had been nearly wiped out, causing concern that a deficit was on the horizon.